3 column layout in 2x2 columns.

Today I took a look at Acquia's website. They do commercial Drupal support. It is my hope to one day be bigger and better than they are. It's a dream, and it might not happen if carneekinet change's direction.

One thing that I really loved was their 3 column layout, so I took a look at how their markup and CSS worked and I couldn't work out why.

Typically I use either a 2 column fixed layout, or a 3 column fixed layout. The left column is invariably used for navigation, and a large column is used for the main content area. If a 3 col layout is used, then the third is often for utility value. AdSense, or "similar products" type areas.

More increasingly I'm seeing 3 col layouts for front pages that have loads of content in all three columns, and this takes you into the meat of the site. Liking the effectiveness of presenting a summary of a lot of content, I want to have a stab at this.

The Acquia front page is reall a 2 col layout in disguise. Column A is further subdivided into 2 columns so you have what feels like three columns.

Here's an image of how I interpret their layout. I can't really workout why they don't just create three columns flat columns.

I am thinking it might possibly be due to column borders and ensuring that don't break if one is longer than the others, but I'm yet to confirm this. 3 sibling columns in the markup appears to make more sense than 2 columns and then 2 child columns of the first. I am sure I'll update this post when I find out more information.